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Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Just Another Rant

I actually wrote this on May 27th... I just never posted it. I didnt read through it but i am sure i still feel the same way just that now, i am more at peace with what i was ranting about... lol Here goes ...

This is just a rant, no hidden agenda, no me trying to act like i know better than anyone, this is what i feel most comfortable with. All i got is questions, few answers, and if we are real with ourselves that is all we have. One of My favorite books is The Count of Monte Cristo. At the end Edmond Dantes(the greatest man to ever live...lol) says this quote "Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words, —'Wait and hope'." The author Alexandre Dumas writes exactly what i feel, we really do not know anything, all it is is a wait game to see if we were right, and some of our wisdom turns to folly, (the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe) and some of our wisdom is really hope (prime example is religion, all it is is hope that we chose the one). But where i deviate from Dumas is, what if there is no "god" to reveal it? What if there is really nothing to reveal, what if Life is just a random event based on no laws or design... on to the rant...

Mehn there has to be an afterlife... this short life can not be it. I REFUSE!!! There has to be something more. If you really look at it, life is soo short, i closed my eyes twice and i am 22, soon i will have a family and kids. Soon after that i will be old man and die. Thats if i dont just drop and die. I find it hard that this is just it. What about those kids that die at 1 yr, is that it for them? They dont get a chance to come back and try to live longer. I understand the body fading, but what about the essence, the soul, that just cant be a one and done, how can it just fade? We dont get to come back? Then i wonder what if this is not my first time here? Who was i in my past life? Did i have the same personality? Was i Nigerian? Or maybe i was Napoleon. That could explain why out of all the historical figures i like him the best, plus we have the same birthday. Was i a girl? or maybe i was a cow?
All these are just a few questions i have, and i think some of y'all might have the same questions. It seems like that is what life is... a bunch of questions few answers. I thought that when i was grown up, i would have all the answers. Now i realise that when adults used to answer me with "it just is", or "it is because i say so". It is because they like me had no idea why "it was so". Its so funny the more we know, the more we find out how little we know. All i know is that life is too short, and i wasted 20 yrs of it, i have only been enjoying it for 2 yrs, and it makes me regret all that time i wasted trying to be anything other than "Realist". I want a re-do.
If there is no after life then what is the meaning of our existence? Maybe the meaning of life is that there is no meaning, all we are are numbers in the population, nothing more, a lot less. Accepting this is harsh, but i can fool myself into believeing that this is not a possibility. What i could do is form some kind of meaning of life, which makes me feel good and useful...

I guess this is how religions start.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Religion vs. Belief: Homosexuality


So i made it to my bi weekly church sessions this Sunday. Went to bible class (breakfast is an incredible incentive to wake up an hr earlier on a Sunday to study the bible). So the teacher cut short what he was talking about, to have all the college student talk about what they thought about Bishop Eddie Long (yea the guy i revealed to you on my last post that he was a fellow member of the Illuminati). But well this isn't important, the important thing was what he did after.

He began telling us to open to verses in the bible that showed homosexuality was wrong. I of course was holding my tongue but i whispered to my friend beside me about how in the same chapter in Leviticus it talked about not eating pork and not having sex with a woman on her period. All the verses till that point were in the old testament. But then the life altering moment happened. He told us to read a verse in the new testament.

Romans 1:26-27
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

I had never read a new testament verse that was against homosexuality, so i had conveniently concluded that it didn't exist. So i used the old reliable "the old testament is outdated" to justify homosexuality. I think homosexuality is NOT a choice. So i found it hard to believe that God could make someone a certain way and then chastise them for it.

So i sat there quiet and contemplating. The moment i should have known would happen sooner or later, had happened. My religion directly opposed what i felt was right. So there it was, homosexuality is wrong. It cannot be right, it cannot be natural, because my God would not do that to his creation. It has to be of the devil, homosexuals should die.


But then i remember why i came to the conclusion that homosexuality was natural. I have seen people who tried their hardest to be straight, who dated good looking people, who were not raped as a child, who were loved as a child, and who could no longer deny their homosexuality. I know a girl who since she was in the 8th grade knew she was gay. And no she was not raped as a child. To me, all the theoretical and theological jargon cannot be compared to these experiences. I cannot just say cus it is written in the bible these people are lying to themselves. Homosexuality for some might be a choice but for a lot it is natural. Especially in places like our beloved Nigeria that your life might be in danger, why will you choose to be homosexual.

As for me, I'm straight. But if i came out the closet today, people who know me would not be surprised. They would be like "that explains a lot". But that is just because people can not wrap their minds around a 22 year old male virgin who is not super religious, who puts good looking females that like him in the friend zone or just acts oblivious to their "hints". I have my reasons, some of them i dont even understand but homosexuality isnt one of them. Asexuality might be...lol I remember laughing my heart out recently when i chilled with some old school friends that i went to JSS with, and hadnt seen in 10yrs. One of them asked me if the steroids i was taking cut down my drive to talk to girls. I had not tried to dance or talk to enough girls the 2 nights we had all gone to the club. And no i dont use steroids, but i did get big (muscular) so i get the steroid joke a lot. That comment made my hour.

But yea, i learned something about myself on sunday. When it comes to my beliefs and my religion... I will pick my beliefs. Because after all my religion is just a part of my belief not the entire thing. Because like Azazel right fully put in the top of the blog page

"We Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. We Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. We Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. We Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. We Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. We Believe only what we ourselves test and judge to be true"

This post was also inspired by Z's post on Bella Naija. http://www.bellanaija.com/2010/09/27/queer-till-i-quench-zs-story/comment-page-2/#comments

You people are slowly sucking me into the naija blog world.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Stubborn pathogen, unsuspecting host.


Hi.

My name is Enoch. Most of you know me as that commenter with a peculiar fondness for ludicrously long comments.

Imagine how long this post is going to be now that there are no character limits :)

Anyway, there is nothing controversial in my post. In fact I am assuming a different role today. I'll be your cheerful tour guide.

You see, a crime has been committed and I'll take you on a tour of the crime scene. I'll be as careful as I can because the crime is in progress and the criminal never stops. The criminal has total control over the scene and would kick me out the second I get him too uncomfortable. You are no stranger to the scene and you're familiar with the wrongs, you just don't see them as such. All I can to do is point this out to you and show you the evidence. You will have to decide to either; ignore it, prosecute it or judge yourself to be in too deep. Hate to break it to you but you are the victim and the perpetrator. And your mind, is the scene of the crime.


Imagine an idea as dangerous as a thermonuclear device and more virulent than the seasonal flu/conjunctivitis. An idea so well crafted such that once a person decides to play host to this idea and accepts it, the host can almost never let it go. He is compelled to nuture it and spread it and is blinded to the fact that it imprisons him and intends to keep him locked up forever. Now imagine you are infected with this idea.

How do you design an idea to meet those specifications? Simple, all you need are five components. I'll play the role of the designer. Let the tour begin.

On my left you've got the ultimate THREAT.

1) The THREAT: Why have one? well, fear is the number one motivator. It is so because evolution's critical goal has always been self preservation. For this reason, it was important that your ancestors be filled with fear when they encountered a predator like say, a lion. Fear provided the trigger for the biological precursors that gave them a heightened sense of awareness and the ability to stretch their bodies and minds to the limit. That was evolution's perfect tool to ensure the survival of a species. This is the reason fear is the most compelling emotion. If our dangerous idea is going to be self sustaining, it would need fear to keep our host on his toes. To elicit this emotion, the THREAT has got to come in two parts. The earthly version which is every conceivable wrong that can happen to a person on earth and the otherworldly version which has to be abstract and vague but represent the very essence of pain. That way everyone experiences it in their own personal visceral way. Since evolution has conditioned us to fear death, why don't we take a page from Ivan Pavlov and profit from evolution's million year effort? Our imaginary otherworldly THREAT would be just like death but unimaginably worse. Some sort of an enduring death with copious amounts of suffering. Perpetual pain and death in one package.

Right above the THREAT, in appealing glitter, you've got the PROMISE.

2) The PROMISE: Is this even necessary? Of course it is. We've got to respect the dichotomy of nature. Besides, being rewarded is also part of evolution's toolkit. We should keep borrowing from her. Fear is nothing without a reward. All animals harness fear to escape predators in order to continue living. When they do so, they are rewarded with life. Sounds good enough. We will make our otherworldly PROMISE life without end. On earth, we could throw in all kinds of promises. All imaginable goodies obtainable on earth. But how can you manage this, you ask? Surely , in reality, the idea can't live up to such expectations! Its host would surely smell a rat once the cruelties of life hits him in the face. Have faith my friend, have faith. Faith? what is that? I'll be designing that too in a moment just keep reading and you'll observe how to take care of the problem you've just highlighted.

That right there in the dark is the bad cop.

3) The BAD COP: The boogieman. The evil dude. Remember what you mentioned earlier about the cruelties of life? This is our fall guy. He would take the fall for everything that falls out of favor with our host. He will also be the resident punching bag on demand to take out all your frustrations.

And then we've got the GOOD COP. He is all around you.

4) The GOOD COP: The nice imaginary friend. The antithesis of the evil dude. He takes credit for everything positive that randomly happens to our host. The host has cancer? Bad cop! Narrowly escapes a car crash? Good cop! pretty simple. Naturally, he also takes credit for the PROMISE. His job, essentially, is to be an opportunist in every sense of the word. Limited only by the imagination of the host. If the host can imagine a positive spin on any scenario/circumsttance, he steps in and snatches the credit. No questions asked. Also, we ascribe him the attribute of being infinitely wise. That way if things go inexplicably wrong the host gets to chuck it up to the mystery of infinite wisdom.

And lastly, the HEAD SHOT. I can't show it to you because it is not a thing, rather, it is the absence of something.

5) The HEAD SHOT: This is the most critical of all components of the idea. It is so important because none of the others are real. Essentially, this is where we take out the head of the host. We've got to shut down his ability to reason for himself. We can't have him thinking and seeing through our folly. Since all the aforementioned components are fake there is no evidence for any of them but we need to convince our host somehow. How do we do this? Faith. What is that, you ask? Well, its really nothing new. I'm borrowing again, this time from the insane. You notice how psychiatric cases have strong convictions about imaginary stuff? We'll just rebrand that. We will call it faith and classify it as good. You might think to yourself, don't be silly, no one is going to accommodate subtle bouts of insanity just to host your idea. That's what you think but in reality all I need is to employ the THREAT and offer the PROMISE and its a done deal.


There you have it. The blueprint for lifelong incarceration. Totally self contained. All imaginary but that doesn't matter. The HEAD SHOT takes care of that.

AS long as it is noted that hosts are more welcoming to the idea when their minds are most pliable (young age or following a traumatic experience) and the host is offered the PROMISE as a reward for spreading the idea then everyone is a potential vector for this pathogen of an idea and its virulence can only grow in bounds.


Don't you just love religious beliefs?

DID THE "TOWER OF BABEL" HAVE ANY ELEVATORS?


So last night, I honestly argued with two of my friends on the subject of christianity/bible until 3 a.m. During the cause of this argument/discussion, I happened on the topic of the tower of babel. The argument so far had definitely been lively and at times heated but it was held with splendid decorum.


Genesis 11:1-9


It is said that the tower of babel was so tall that it was almost reaching heaven, that God felt so threatened by it that he resolved to stop them from reaching heaven by giving them different languages. No yawa, baba God struck all the people there with different languages and they could no longer communicate with each other, hence the construction of the building stopped. Now to my question, HOW TALL COULD THE TOWER OF BABEL HAVE BEEN THAT IT WAS ALMOST REACHING HEAVEN? That would mean that this tower passed earth, entered space, passed pluto, jupiter, venus etc and was almost reaching heaven? Chai, come and see serious architecture, those builders deserve noble prizes. If you go to school, your ass should know that there is no way that building entered space, because obviously there is no gravity in space. Moreover, with a building that tall, how where the workers able to get to the top to keep on constructing? Elevator no dey, escalator no dey, space ship no dey, how where these mere men able to climb up to the top of the tower? They had no space suits, and in space they would be floating. And this is what vexes me with the bible and people who believe somuch in it, the truth is right there staring you in your freaking face but noooo you refuse to accept it because you don't want to deal with the responsiblity. After they will say controversy your to negative, you are to cynical, you are to pessimistic, you mock our religion, you criticize us tomuch. But why won't I mock your useless religion? I grow weary with every passing day because I see people living lies. People just refuse to think, I keep on repeating the same thing. 2 % of people think, 3% of people think that they think, 95% of people would rather die than think. I just do not understand it, why would people see the truth and choose to ignore it. It just does not make sense to me, and this weariness has translated into how I relate to people. Honestly, nothing human beings do can surprise me anymore, people are so scared to embrace the truth and this reality has ultimately affected how i relate to people around me this days. I have showed you guys the absurdity of the whole thing and people will still find a way to try to explain it?
There will be those who will say that maybe the "tower almost reaching heaven" should not be taken literally, to those people I say, if the tower was as tall as the largest sky scraper man has made, why has God not brought down those sky scrapers as well? So that side of the argument is not logical.
Then they wonder, why is it with all the things these guy says against religion/bible has God not struck him down with thunder. I summit to you that the reason God has not struck me down with thunder, is because I am telling the truth. It might not be the whole truth, but I know that I have at least done my part in asking questions. The bible says there was a tower, they say that the tower was almost reaching heaven. You have all seen spaceships enter space, so you all must believe that it is not made up, hence it is real. Now tell me, how is it possible that people wey no get elevators, escalators, spaceships or spacesuits were able to build a tower that was almost reaching heaven? A tower that was so tall, that it got a whole Almighty God worried, that he had to strike them with different languages? Please make una find me answer. if you can not find me answer, it's ok I have already forgiven you in advance. Hiss, Good Night abi na Good Morning jare.


P.S: I am sorry if anybody is offended with my tone in this particular blogpost, but in my defence I am writing this at 4 am, lol I could not sleep so I decided to write this as a draft and save it before I forgot about it tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

RELIGION OR FAITH





It might come as surprise to all, that well, there is a difference between these two concepts. Are people religious, or are they men/women of faith. At the end, I will go into more details because you find that by observing, you can note the difference between the two.
This post has the potential to be a long one, therefore, I am going to cliff note it as much as I can.
So here is an introduction course to religions. ( To clear up some misunderstandings)
There are, two frame works in religion:
1. Western thought (Islam, Judaism, Christianity). These are also termed as Abrahamic Religions.
2. Eastern thought (eg. Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism...). Also known as Dharmic Religions.
These two frameworks are coined, partially based on their point of origin, but mostly in their differences. Western religions are monotheistic, and Eastern religions are polytheistic. They consequently follow the differences between Eastern and Western philosophies...that is to say, what we all must know by now...the east and the west have different ways of life.

When I accepted to be a contributor, my main reason was to clear up some misunderstanding, on God/Gods. and how authors in this blog and those who made comments loosely used the word. Western religions believe in ONE God. Therefore, I do not understand why ignorance calls for people to say a Muslim God, a Jewish God, and a Christian God. That is wrong, because all three religions believe in the same God. Allah, is not another God. ( we can discuss this further if people wish) and Yahweh is not different from God...although it is deemed more respectable.

It is also wrong to say, Hindu or Buddhist God....because there are many Gods. For example, there are approximately 330 million gods in Hinduism. Some of them actually can be termed as henotheistic. I dont have to go through all these religions, and the breakdown of their gods because that requires a lifetime of dedication to the study of this. However, it must be noted that Eastern religions are much embedded in their philosophy, and the two are most of the time synonymous.

Now back to faith and religion.
Religion exists to control faith, faith exists to keep religion in check. Religion is man's interpretation of God's will, faith is its acceptance. Or rather, Religion is man's attempt to reach God, and faith, is a lifestyle of total contentment in who you are as Created being, living and breathing in assurance that there is a higher power that is watching over you.
Faith is our fundamental understanding of reality. This is an expression of the way we understand the world, what values we believe are important not only to us, but to others as well, what ideals we hold sacred and what is not, what we believe is right and wrong, what we aspire for not only in this world, but beyond this world. Religion on the other hand, is an outward expression of that belief. This is why I will tell people that I am a woman of faith, but I am not religious. I go to Church when I want to, and I participate in organized religions, when and however I chose to, because my practicing religion does not affirm my faith.

BY SACRED

Sunday, September 20, 2009

MAY GOD NEVER GAMBLE ON OUR LIVES IN JESUS NAME. AMEN


Since today is Sunday, and I did not go to church. I have decided to deliver my own religious sermon today.But before I continue lol, we are looking for a female blogger who will bring a feminine perspective to our blog. Basically we have two guys here and a friend suggested that we get a female up in here to who has differing views, it would not hurt to get somebody who represents the other side of the argument. Anyone interested, can let me know.
NOW BACK TO THE SERMON.
Please my people open your bibles to JOB 1:1-13. The book of Job has always been used by Pastors/Reverends etc as an example of how God tests people who are faithful to him etc. It has been presented in such a view, that even when I was still living in that darkness called christianity I use to accept the story as very reasonable. So today, seeing as a brother has come into the light, I have decided to approach this book of Job from another aspect. I am not going to post the verses here as they are to long, hence I will summarise the verse for you and you can verify to see whether I have distorted facts or not.

1.Job was a father who had ten children. Seven sons and three daughters. He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels.Basically, homeboy was the richest baller in the EAST.Did I mention that he was a righteous man, and a man after God's heart. The bible says that he was blameless, a man who feared God.

2.One day, the angels came to present themselves before God, Satan was taking a stroll that afternoon and decided to stop by to hail baba God. While baba God and Satan were discussing, Satan issued a challenge to God saying that Job would crack if God would let Satan have Job. Basically, Satan was saying that Job would forsake God, if Satan plagued him enough. Anywayz, baba God agreed to the bet and so Satan proceeded to strike all ten of Job's children dead, God sent down fire and it killed the sheep and servants, the camels and the servants again where also killed. At the end of everything sha, everything my homeboy Job had, was taken away from him. All his ten children and numerous servants had died, we shall approximate that all in all @ least 80 people died.(Please if you have a problem accepting that the number was 80 people I urge you to realise that 80 people isn't really that big for our God. He has killed a whole lot of more people than that, so please do not cringe at the thought of 80 people dying.)

Now this is where my sermon starts, so 80 people died that day for what purpose? I will summit to you that 80 people died that day because the lord gambled with their lives with Satan. I thought when people said that a game or bet was "high stakes" they meant in terms of money, now I have seen what our Lord God views as High stakes lmao. As in this one na serious high stakes poker, where you play for people's lives and not for money. Imagine, gambling with peoples lives like that, 80 people died that day just because of a bet? Please what was Job's crime? That he was blameless?That he feared God?That he was righteous?That he loved the lord with all his heart? And pray tell how was homeboy repaid? The lord wiped out his family except his wife, took everything he had simply because he had made a bet with Satan?
Now the question is, if God and Satan are able to gamble over the lives of people like that, what stops them from doing it over and over again? You guys know how gambling can be addictive, who knows maybe our good God might have gotten addicted to gambling. I mean if they were able to do it before, nothing stops them from doing it again and again and this might go to explain why we see so many good people suffering and dying in their prime.. Maybe God has placed a bet on them with the devil again, or maybe this time he's playing Russian Roulette with their lives.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Never ever in your life, be viewed as blameless, righteous, God-fearing, upright and somebody who shuns evil. Because if you become any of these things you immediately qualify to be used as the object of a bet between the Devil and God.
In closing, MAY THE LORD NEVER GAMBLE ON EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU'S LIVES IN JESUS NAME. AMEN.

BY CONTROVERSY!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

The Conception of Jesus

The alleged conception of Jesus in his mother's womb occurred in circumstances, which lay outside the laws of nature common to all human beings. The egg produced by the mother's ovary did not need to join with a part which should have come from his father, to form the embryo and hence a foetus. The phenomena of the birth of a normal person without the fertilizing action of the male's part is called 'parthenogenesis'. This form of reproduction occurs in some insects and flowers, in which the unfertilized ovum develops directly into a new life. In trying to present Jesus as a biological exception, Biblical writers and composers defied logic and science. It is shameful and repugnant that the alleged embodiment of God would be conceived like an insect or flower. Jesus did not need to a biological exception only in the way he was conceived in his mother's womb, but then presented as have grown in the same womb, was born and had a childhood that was biological or natural.


If Christ had to come into the world avoiding the impurity of human conception and birth, why did he not descend directly from heaven in person? If he can descend on the clouds at his still awaited alleged second coming, why could he not do the same at his first coming, thereby pre-empting reasons for doubt and saving far more of fallen humanity?



The Babylonian Talmud says that Jesus was a mamzer (literally a bastard or an illegitimate child). It says he was born out of an illegitimate union between his mother and a drunken Roman soldier. Only the offspring of incestuous or forbidden marriages are mamzerim. Children born out of wedlock are not mamzerim in Jewish law and bear no stigma, unless the marriage would have been prohibited. Children of a married man and a woman who is not his wife are not mamzerim (because the marriage between the parents would not have been prohibited), although children of a married woman and a man who is not her husband are mamzerim (because she could not have married him).



There are scattered first century Christian and Talmudic references to a miracle worker named Jesus ben Pantera. Among them is a quote from Origen, saying that his arch-rival Celsus had heard from a Jew in Jerusalem that Jesus Ben Pantera was born of Mary as the result of a rape by a Roman soldier named Pantera, and had borne the baby in secret. There may be something to this assertion, which would account for Mark's obvious embarrassment regarding the origins of Jesus since Gospel of Mark never mentions Joseph as the husband of Mary.



Note also that it was both the Roman custom and the custom of the Jews to include a patrilineal surname as part of a person's full name; yet nowhere in the New Testament does the surname of Jesus, (or Joseph, for that matter) appear. Jesus is often referred to as Jesus of Nazareth, a geographical surname that was usually reserved by Jews for illegitimate children of unknown patrilineage (Romans used the surname of the father, regardless of the legitimacy of the birth). The Talmud refers to Jeshu as being the illegitimate son of an adulteress named Mary Magdala.



The Talmud mentions Jesus' name 20 times and documents that he was born an illegitimate son of a Roman soldier called Panthera, nicknamed "the Panther". In many Jewish references, Jesus is often referred to as "ben Panthera". ‘ben’ means ‘son of".



Religious scholars over the centuries have discussed at length why Jesus was so regularly called ben Panthera. Origen of Alexandria (184-254 CE) is one of the greatest of all early Christian theologians, a historian and clergyman. He was appointed to succeed Clement of Alexandria as head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, where he had been a student. Prior to St. Augustine, he was the most influential theologian of the church.



He recorded the following verses about Mary from the research records of a highly regarded second-century historian and author named Celsus (c. 178): Mary was turned out by her husband, a carpenter by profession, after she had been convicted of unfaithfulness. Cut off by her spouse, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard; that Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt; that while there he acquired certain (magical) powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing - ‘Contra Celsum’ (Against Celsus), 1:28.



Later, in passage 1:32, Origen supports the Jewish records and confirms that the paramour of the mother of Jesus was a Roman soldier called Panthera, a name he repeats in verse 1:69. Some time during the 17th century, those sentences were erased from the oldest Vatican manuscripts and other codices under Church control (Origen 1:28 and 1:32) by Lommatzech in his Origen Contra Celsum, Berlin, 1845.



Contra Celsum (Against Celsus) is a closely reasoned long apologetic work refuting arguments advanced by the philosopher Celsus, an influential 2nd-century Platonist of Alexandria and perhaps the first serious critic of Christianity.



The early Christian church writings of St Epiphanius (315-403 CE), the Bishop of Constantia/Salamis, the metropolis of the Island of Cyprus, again confirm the ben Panthera story, and his information is of a startling nature. This champion of Christian orthodoxy and saint of Catholicism states: Jesus was the son of a certain Julius whose surname was Panthera – ‘Haer’ (Heresies), lxxvii, 7.



While very young, St Epiphanius followed the monastic life in Egypt. On his return to Judea he founded a monastery at Besanduk and was ordained to the priesthood. In 367 his reputation for asceticism and learning brought about his nomination as a bishop.



According to Jonathon D. Michaelis, Commentaries on the Law of Moses, vols. I-IV (1814), the story of Mary's pregnancy by a Roman soldier also appears in the sacred book of the Moslems, the Koran. It states that "a full-grown man" forced his attentions on Mary, and in her fear of the disgrace that would follow she left the area and bore Jesus in secret. This story was supported in the Gospel of Luke, with the description of the departure of Joseph and Mary from their home prior to the birth. Rape was a common event in Palestine during the Roman occupation, and soldiers were notorious for their treatment of young women.



It would be unthinkable for Mary to admit such an event had occurred, for under the Law of Moses a betrothed virgin who had sex with any man during the period of her betrothal was to be stoned to death by the men of the city (Deut. 22:21). Simply put, Mary faced the death penalty unless she could prove her innocence.



There are numerous rabbinical sources from the early Christian period, which refer to the Jesus of Christian fame as Jesus ben Pantera from Nazareth. There are several interesting references to a Jeshu ben Pandera from Nazareth who travelled around and practised as a member of the Essene Movement during the reign of Alexander Janneus, who ruled Palestine from 104 to 78 BCE. He was declared a heretic by a temple court, was stoned to death and hanged on a tree on the eve of Passover in 88 BCE.


BY BLASPHEMY